


The Only Heaven I've Found

by anextraordinarymuse (December_Daughter)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-28 05:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5079730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/December_Daughter/pseuds/anextraordinarymuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’d been asleep, dreaming of the past, but she didn’t want to dream anymore. Fitz was here, he was close and he was frightened and, Jemma realized, so was she. She didn’t want to be in the past anymore, not when her future was beckoning to her; not when Fitz was waiting for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Heaven I've Found

**Author's Note:**

> So I saw a prompt on tumblr about person A of your OTP getting into a car accident and, realizing how injured they were and running out of time, calling person B to say goodbye. Then this happened.  
> Of course, I'm not actually cruel enough to kill my precious science babies, so it ends well.  
> I didn't really have a timeline in mind when I wrote this. Let's say it takes place somewhere in the future, late season three or beyond.

“What do you think it looks like, Fitz?”

“What?”

“Heaven. What do you think it looks like?”

There was a heavy pause. Then, “What’s going on, Jemma?”

Jemma held her mouth away from the phone receiver and sucked in a painful breath. “Nothing’s going on, why?”

“You called me just to ask what I thought heaven looked like?” Fitz’s voice was suspicious. “In the middle of the day?”

The next words were shouted from a distance, in a voice that was distinctly not Jemma’s. “Where the hell are those jaws?”

Fitz sat up straight in his chair, the movement sharp and jarring. His heart leapt into his throat. “Jemma? What the hell is going on?”

Jemma swallowed down a sob. Her voice shook. “Fitz …”

“Ma’am?” the strange voice interrupted on the other end of the line. “We’re going to use the Jaws of Life on your door. It’s going to be loud, but it’s very important that you hold still. Can you do that for me?”

Jemma nodded and breathed out an affirmative answer. In her ear, Fitz’s voice was steeped in terror.

“What happened? Where are you? Jemma?”

She tried to breathe, but her bones creaked and her muscles burned; her lungs felt as though they’d rip through the suddenly thin membrane of her skin as they expanded. She didn’t want Fitz to find her because if he did … if he did he’d see her as she was now: trapped and perilously close to running out of time. Jemma didn’t want him to see this.

Calling him had been foolish. Of course he would know that something was wrong; he was Fitz, her best friend; her _soon_ ; her _something more_. Thinking about the future they’d been so close to made her heart ache.

“Leo …”

The use of his first name, so sparingly used, brought something akin to a pained whine from Fitz. “Please,” he begged softly. “Please, Jemma. Just … tell me where you are.”

Outside the car, Jemma could just see someone wielding what looked like a giant pair of frightening pliers. She rolled her eyes up and away only to be greeted by the sight of a slowly growing stream. The smell of gasoline burned her nose.

The knowledge that she was only a few blocks from him was a cruel knife in her thoughts. If she told him, Fitz would be here in no time at all. Her desire to see him was so strong, and if it was to be the last time …

“The bridge,” she choked out. “The E street bridge.”

Jemma heard Fitz slam his hands down on a table, and the hitch in his breathing. He was coming. A rivulet of blood crawled down (up?) her scalp and disappeared into her hairline. Somewhere, something was dripping.

Jemma didn’t know if she wanted him to make it in time or not.

“I’m coming, Jemma. I’m coming, okay? Just … just …”

The Jaws of Life had just begun to stretch the metal, and the sound was awful. Jemma sobbed and, unsure if he heard or not, said, “it won’t be heaven without you.”

Then she closed her eyes.

 

* * *

 

Heaven looks like a Chemistry lab.

They are seventeen years old and they’ve just been paired as lab partners.

Jemma considers protesting for a second, and then decides that challenging her teacher’s decision – in a room full of people, no less – would be ill advised. So what if Leo Fitz hates her? As long as he does his share of the work and pulls his weight, they shouldn’t have a problem.

Jemma offers her new lab partner a weak smile, but he isn’t looking at her so he doesn’t see it. She sighs quietly and squares her shoulders. Right, she tells herself, all business, all the time.

Fitz is laconic, but Jemma is pleased to find that he’s efficient. They run in to each other more than once during that first lab, and Jemma is irritated right up until she realizes that it only keeps happening because they apparently have the same ideas at nearly the same time. She tests this theory by purposely reaching for something slower than usual; Jemma can’t help the smile that tugs at her lips when her theory is proven correct.

His first word to her is, “sorry.” The first time Fitz really talks to Jemma though, it’s the second day of their lab and he raises bright blue eyes to look at her and offer a solution to the puzzle that their professor has assigned them to solve. The modicum of surprise Jemma experiences upon realizing that Fitz has finally spoken to her – looked her full on in the face and spoken a full (fantastic) sentence to her – is immediately washed away by the excitement of realizing that his idea is perfect. Jemma is halfway through her response when she remembers that people always complain that they can’t understand her when she gets excited. Her words falter mid-sentence, but when she looks at Fitz he doesn’t appear irritated or confused at all. In fact, the last echo of her voice hasn’t even faded before he’s finishing her thought as though it were his own. Jemma beams at him, and Fitz’s smile isn’t as wide but it’s there.

She decides to go ahead and have high hopes for Chemistry lab after that.

 

* * *

 

Heaven looks like a messy ponytail at five in the morning.

They are eighteen years old and inseparable.

Fitz loves his mum. She has sacrificed so much for him, and done everything within her power to ensure that his voracious intellect is nurtured and encouraged. Fitz had been lonely at home and kept much to himself, but he knows that had been no fault of his mother’s. He is overwhelmingly grateful for her.

Still, it’s possible that Fitz has never been happier than he is here.

Jemma is generally the more responsible one out of the two of them. Fitz would remember to eat without her – in fact, the one thing he can claim is that he’s widely responsible for making sure that they eat regularly – but he’d probably forget everything else. Jemma is the one who insists they leave the lab: “fresh air is good for our health, Fitz,” and “there is a world outside of the lab, you know.” She never lets his grumbling stop her from dragging him out of the realm of experiments and schematics and results (even when the dragging is literal, her small hand looped around his wrist and insistent as she tugs him out into the sunlight).

Fitz learns almost from the start, however, that the majority of Jemma’s sensibility goes straight out the window and is immediately replaced by a remarkable stubbornness when she is faced with a problem that resists her best attempts to solve it. She’s always driven, and determined – as their history of competitiveness and past attempts to one-up each other can attest – but this isn’t the same. Jemma is affronted when something proves to be more challenging than she expects; she becomes obsessed.

Fitz had been stunned the first few times he’d knocked on her dorm room door and discovered that she’d foregone even a moment of sleep in favor of working out a puzzle. He’s a remarkably fast learner, though.

A year after that first day of being partners, Fitz can spot Jemma’s obsessive drive kicking in long before it actually does. He’s had more than a few experiences with it before now, which is why he shows up at her door at ten minutes after midnight on a Saturday, now Sunday. Fitz knows that she had plans to go to the Boiler Room this evening with Lana, a not unintelligent girl from their year that looks at Fitz strangely; he knows that Jemma has blown off those plans when eleven thirty rolls around and he hasn’t received a single text from his best friend.

Jemma is as dependable in her drunken texting as she is in everything else.

So Fitz knocks on her door and barely makes a face at all when it swings open with unnecessary zeal a few seconds later. Jemma doesn’t even look at his face before nabbing him by the hand and pulling him bodily into the room and over to her desk. The door only closes again because Fitz manages to catch it with his heel and give it a little kick, cringing when it slams audibly and hoping that it doesn’t wake anyone.

“It’s absolutely fascinating, Fitz,” Jemma says. “The cells didn’t react at all the way I thought they would, but I was only able to run a few preliminary tests before Professor Tays kicked me out of the lab. I know there’s something I’m missing, but without the samples I can only do so much, and …”

“Jemma.”

She stops mid-sentence and finally focuses on Fitz’s face. Her hair is up in a ponytail but there are a few wisps around her ears, and there are bags underneath her eyes despite their excited shine. Jemma is never more beautiful to him than when her face is full of joy and enthusiasm (even when she is exhausted and those are the only things keeping her on her feet), but Fitz knows better than to let that sway him now.

“You were in the lab all day again, weren’t you?”

Jemma steamrolls over him and says, “Have you heard a word I’ve said, Fitz?”

“Yeah, no, Jemma. The cells did something fascinating, I get it, but you’ve probably not eaten since breakfast and aren’t you the one always reminding me how poorly our mental faculties operate without sufficient rest and fuel?”

“Ugh, Fitz! Who cares about food? I’m so close to figuring this out, I know it, I just …”

Fitz puts both hands on her shoulders and shakes his head as he turns her around and half guides, half pushes her to the little loveseat that she’s just barely managed to push up against the wall near the foot of her bed.

“Sit.” He exerts pressure on her shoulders until she collapses, boneless, onto one of the cushions.

Fitz retrieves the purple, blue, and green quilt draped carefully over the end of Jemma’s neatly made bed. Jemma’s mum had sent it to her last Christmas, and Fitz knows that it’s her favorite blanket. He returns to the loveseat and settles himself into the spot that Jemma has left open for him; he shakes out the quilt and drapes it over her. She immediately shuffles to extend the blanket’s reach to Fitz’s lap.

“If you can’t solve it,” Fitz starts.

“Sleep on it,” Jemma finishes with him. She blows out a tired and frustrated breath. “How exactly am I supposed to do that when my brain won’t shut off?”

Fitz angles himself to the side a little, propping half of his back against the couch and the other half against the couch arm. “If you had to write up your lab report tonight, with only the findings you’ve gathered so far, what would it say?”

Jemma is two minutes into her explanation when her words taper off and she tilts slowly to the side, her head bent awkwardly in the air above Fitz’s chest. She doesn’t open her eyes even for a second when he wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her down against him.

Fitz wakes at just before five in the morning. He opens bleary eyes and squints until the image of Jemma’s head on his chest comes in to focus; she’s still out like a light and the high curve of her ponytail – now bedraggled and pushed to one side - tickles the underside of his chin.

Jemma shifts and sighs. Fitz goes back to sleep.

When he wakes the second time, it’s to Jemma’s elated proclamation of, “Fitz! I know what happened!”

No, he’s never been happier than he is now.

 

* * *

 

Heaven is a family dinner.

They are twenty-two and their parents are in town. The air is full of excitement (and maybe a little reluctance where Fitz is concerned). Mrs. Fitz and Mr. and Mrs. Simmons are full of smiles as they encourage their children to expound on their plans, even though they can barely get a word in edgewise.

“Of course, we don’t know exactly what we’ll be doing yet -” Jemma says.

“- But we’ve been given level five security clearance -“

“Which I’m not even sure we’re supposed to be telling people, honestly, Fitz –“

“They’re our parents, Jemma, not spies.”

“I _know_ that …”

Mrs. Fitz clears her throat and smiles widely. Fitz is immediately chagrined and mumbles a quick, “sorry, mum,” but she’s far from upset. Mrs. Fitz beams at Jemma’s parents, and then at Jemma herself.

“Jemma, I’ve already told Leo, but I didn’t have a chance to tell you at the reception. Your speech was beautiful.”

Jemma smiles and, if Fitz isn’t mistaken, might actually blush. “Thank you, Mrs. Fitz.”

“Agent Weaver said it was quite unheard of to have two valedictorians,” Mrs. Simmons adds, equally proud. “You both did wonderfully.”

Before Jemma or Fitz can offer their thanks, Mr. Simmons is leaning forward in his chair to ask, “Will you be working together at Sci-Ops?”

“Oh, yes,” Jemma answers.

Simultaneously, Fitz says, “Not exactly.”

“Well, not on the same projects,” Jemma amends quickly. “Though there might be some overlap on several of the projects, of course, and technically our departments are separate but –“

“But we’ll be together,” Fitz finishes.

“Right.” Jemma smiles widely.

“Of course,” Mr. Simmons agrees.

Mrs. Simmons turns a secret smile to Mrs. Fitz, who does her best to return it innocently. Jemma and Fitz miss the exchange completely because Jemma has just spotted one of their classmates by the front door.

“Fitz,” she exclaims happily, latching onto his bicep with one hand. “There’s Kara. I thought she’d already gone, we should go ask her about that centrifuge while we have the chance.”

“I thought you already asked her about that?” Fitz turns and looks over his shoulder, smiling when Kara notices and waves at them.

“I was going to but then Professor Tays was telling us how impressed he was and I didn’t want to interrupt him and you kept missing all of my cues –“

“Cues?” Fitz repeats incredulously. “Is that what you’d call stepping on my toes?”

“Stepping …? I was trying – oh, never mind, just go,” Jemma huffs as she waves at him to get out of his chair.

“Be right back,” Fitz tells their parents apologetically.

“Won’t be but a moment,” Jemma adds with a smile.

Mrs. Fitz and Mr. and Mrs. Simmons watch their children weave their way to the front of the restaurant, where their friend greets them warmly.

“Well, Mrs. Fitz,” Mr. Simmons starts, “I do believe we should become better acquainted.”

“We’ll be seeing a lot of each other, I should think,” Mrs. Simmons adds.

Just then, across the room, Jemma turns to tug on Fitz’ arm with both hands and an expression of excitement so bright that it illuminates them both. Fitz grins. Mrs. Fitz smiles tenderly, her heart full to the brim with her son’s obvious happiness.

“Yes,” Mrs. Fitz agrees. “A lot, indeed.”

 

* * *

 

Heaven is a plane several thousand feet in the air.

They are twenty-six and working quietly in the lab.

There is an element of fear and uncertainty to their lives now that Fitz is having a hard time adjusting to, and the last few days have heightened that. He’s doing his best to move on, but when he closes his eyes all he can see is Jemma being pulled from the back of the plane, and her body disappearing into the clouds. He has to stop what he’s doing every other minute or so just to look up and reassure himself that she’s sitting on the stool across the room.

For the first time in nearly ten years, Leo Fitz is reminded of what life would be like – had been like without Simmons. They’ve been so ingrained in each other’s life that he’s forgotten it’s possible for them to be separated; he’s forgotten that they are not actually one unit, and might eventually face a day when they’ll be expected to function individually.

Fitz has also had to admit to himself, unequivocally, that he’s in love with Jemma Simmons.

It’s been a rough few days.

Jemma sighs. “For the last time, Fitz, I’m fine.”

Fitz startles. “What?” His thoughts have left him staring unwittingly at the back of her head, and she’s caught him.

“You’re staring,” Jemma states.

“Right, yeah … uh, no, I mean … I wasn’t staring, exactly, I was just …” There’s no good way to end that sentence, so he swallows it instead. He drops his eyes to whatever is in his hands and, honestly, he’s quite forgotten what he was doing.

Jemma checks her watch – half past eleven – and hops off the stool. They should have gone to bed hours ago, but Fitz isn’t the only one who sees things he’d rather forget when he closes eyes.

“C’mon then,” Jemma says. She cleans up her workspace with practiced ease and then turns to Fitz, who hasn’t moved. “I have some chamomile in my bunk.”

Fitz catches on and tucks his stuff away quickly. Jemma switches off the lab lights and then leads the way up the stairs. The plane is quiet around them, and the sky is dark outside the Bus windows.

Jemma makes them tea on autopilot. When they are both holding steaming mugs she kicks off her shoes and climbs onto one end of her bed, while Fitz climbs onto the other. They prop their backs against opposite walls and stretch their legs out next to each other. It’s silent for a while as they wait for their tea to cool enough to take their first drinks.

“Is it what you imagined?” Fitz asks quietly. “Field work, I mean.”

“I don’t think I could have imagined anything like this, honestly.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Leaving the lab?” she clarifies. Fitz nods. “Do you want me to?”

Fitz is surprised by the question. He thinks for a long moment. Does he want Jemma to regret her decision? He’s surprised by the answer, which is ‘not really’. Field work is terrifying and, if he may, largely out of their field of expertise – but he’s never wanted Jemma to be anything less than happy. He might have been content to stay in the lab forever, but she would not have been; eventually Jemma would have chaffed at the drudgery and sameness of it all, and Fitz would have hated that.

“’Course not,” Fitz answers. He’s been silent a while, but his answer rings true. “I want you to do what makes you happy, Jemma. You know that.”

Jemma’s face softens and the corners of her mouth tuck up into a smile. “I do,” she assures.

The only light in the room is from a lamp on the little nightstand at Jemma’s end of the bed. The glow it gives off is warm, and it throws most of Fitz’s face into shadow. Jemma studies him as he stares down into his tea; the shadows make him look older, or perhaps she has done that. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t feel more worn now than she had a few months ago, when her life had consisted of four walls and nothing more dangerous than chemicals in a lab. Maybe Fitz looks older because he’s followed her into a life more dangerous than either of them had anticipated.

Her thoughts are becoming too somber, so Jemma redirects them.

“If you weren’t a scientist, what would you be?”

Fitz raises his eyes. “If I could choose anything?”

Jemma nods.

His answer is quick. “Zoologist.”

She huffs. “Not the …”

“Then I could work with …”

“… Monkeys again,” she finishes, and they laugh quietly.

They shift positions as they talk their way into the night, until their heads are next to each in the middle of the bed and their legs are propped up against opposite walls.

May finds them like that hours later, fast asleep. Their legs are curled up and tucked to the side, but they haven’t moved otherwise. She stares at their youthful faces for a heavy minute, until Jemma stirs and turns her head to rest against Fitz’ temple. Fitz sighs in his sleep.

* * *

“Jemma?”

“Sir, you can’t …”

“Jemma? Oh god …”

She could hear Fitz getting closer, but her brain was slow to provide the details. Jemma fought to bring herself out of the pull of oblivion: she focused on the steady beeping that was slowly impinging on her peace, and the heaviness of her unresponsive limbs.

“Is she alive?” Fitz demanded.

“I’m sorry, sir, but unless you’re family –“

Jemma’s throat burned as she swallowed. She’d been asleep, dreaming of the past, but she didn’t want to dream anymore. Fitz was here, he was close and he was frightened and, Jemma realized, so was she. She didn’t want to be in the past anymore, not when her future was beckoning to her; not when Fitz was waiting for her.

“F …” the rest of his name disappeared, so Jemma took a breath and tried again. “Fitz.”

Her eyes didn’t want to open, but Jemma was determined. She blinked heavily, again, and again, until the world came into focus around her. She turned her head to one side; she was in an ambulance.

“Fitz,” she said again.

He appeared at the end of the ambulance, blue eyes wide and tortured in a pale face.

“Jemma!”

He barreled past the paramedic that had been blocking his way and leapt into the back of the ambulance, nearly sliding to his knees at her side. Fitz grabbed her hand as his eyes roved over her body, strapped in to the stretcher and hooked up to machines. When he looked at her again, there were tears in his eyes.

She licked dry lips. “A week … Coulson …” the words were breathy and whisper thin. Jemma sucked in more air and kept going anyway. “Coulson said a week of leave would be good for us. I don’t think … this is what he had … in mind.”

Fitz huffed and curled her hand into a fist so that he could press his lips against her knuckles. Jemma felt tears slide down the back of her hand. Her eyelids were drooping again; they must have given her morphine. There was something else, though, something about their last conversation that she wanted to tell him. What was it?

“Heaven,” Fitz whispered.

Jemma dragged her eyes open. “Wha’?”

“Our last conversation. It was about heaven.”

She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud. Fitz sounded terrible, the fear and pain like anchors weighing down his words. Jemma tried to squeeze his hand – she was here, they were together – but her muscles refused to contract.

Oh, right. Heaven. “Fi’z?”

“’M here, Jemma.”

“The only heaven I’ve foun’ is with you.”

Satisfied that she’d remembered, Jemma closed her eyes and fell into dreams of her future.

When she woke, Fitz was exactly where he'd always been, and where she wanted him for the rest of her life: by her side.


End file.
